Playwright looks at family dynamics
NEW YORK—Most of what we learn about the families of troubled high schoolers comes from pieced-together news accounts after something has gone horribly wrong. They're the kinds of stories that try to answer the question, "Where were the parents?"
"From Up Here," a new off-Broadway play, speculates about the answer: They were bagging lunches, looking for missing dry cleaning and trying really hard to make their kids talk to them.
A grounded and funny story set against the ominous backdrop of teenage sex and violence, the Manhattan Theatre Club production is more interested in human dynamics than in pointing fingers. Liz Flahive, the 28-year-old, first-time playwright, said before a recent rehearsal that she never set out to write an issues-oriented play.
"I think my intention was always to write a family story, so I try to put the characters and their relationships first in the writing," she explained in a follow-up e-mail. "And I believe looking at some of these more topical ideas and issues through the lens of family helps to open up the conversation in a different way."
It certainly raises the stakes: Every familial tiff or mini-crisis is amplified as we get to know Kenny, a frustrated teen who has to apologize in front of his entire school for something he has done. His local infamy has so unnerved his recently married mother, Grace (Julie White), that she wants to sell the family's house and move.
The play initially feels like a light comedy about grumpy teens and harried adults. But a sense of menace strikes when Grace's new husband Daniel (Brian Hutchison) clumsily informs Kenny (Tobias Segal) that he needs to search his backpack before he can leave for school.
It's just one of many deftly plotted moments in "From Up Here," which is playing at City Center Stage 1. Other well-executed revelations involve rumors about Kenny's sister Lauren (Aya Cash) and more than one male classmate. What could have been an awkward bit of exposition tumbles out charmingly in a rambling monologue by scene-stealer Will Rogers, playing a fellow student, Charlie, who wants desperately to take Lauren to a dance.
The last major character is free-spirit Caroline (Arija Bareikis), whose unexpected return from the backpack-and-volunteer circuit makes everyone, especially Daniel, question their regimented lives. In case you're worried, this isn't one of those plays where everyone learns to just loosen up and be happy.
Flahive, like her characters, grew up in a Midwestern suburb -- she in Chicago, and they in an unidentified town. She graduated from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts Department of Dramatic Writing, then wrote for fashion and beauty magazines while working on "From Up Here" as part of a reading series at the Ars Nova theater, which emphasizes new and innovative works.
The play seized the attention of Ars Nova artistic director Jason Egan, who contacted director Leigh Silverman.
"My plate was very full at the time and I kept asking him, 'Really? It's that good?'" Silverman said. "And as soon as I read it, I realized he was right -- it was."
Silverman soon signed on to direct Flahive's debut.
"We did a few development workshops and readings over the years and although the play has undergone substantial transformations, Liz has really figured out how to enhance, strengthen and deepen the work," Silverman said.
Flahive is working on a second play, as well as a screenplay with her husband, "Blades of Glory" co-writer Jeff Cox.
She also volunteers with the 52nd Street Project, where she helps inner city kids produce their own theater. Though some of the students are teenagers, she says she didn't draw on their experiences to create the suburban malcontents in "From Up Here."
"What I will say is volunteering with teenagers and kids keeps my feet on the ground and allows me a different perspective," she said. "I think it's so hard being a teenager now, and I didn't think it was particularly easy when I was in high school."
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